


Love Lights The Darkest of Hearts

by MysticDodo



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Ceremonial Duel, M/M, Post Ceremonial Duel, alternative ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 01:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8308351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysticDodo/pseuds/MysticDodo
Summary: Yuugi won the duel and Atem said his name. So why was he refused from the Afterlife?





	

Yuugi was ready. Yami was not. 

To the Pharaoh, the duel was nothing but a losing situation. He won and it meant he could stay, or he lost and he had to leave. He won, and Yuugi wouldn’t be able to become his own man. He’d lose, and Yami would be ripped away before he could truly become human. 

Ah, it was confusing. His thoughts were rushing. His knees were shaking, his feet uncooperative, as he stumbled towards his fallen partner, who was crying on the floor. Aibou had won. Aibou was crying like he had lost, though. Yami knelt down, spoke some words. He wasn’t sure if he believed them. He was distracted by the warm skin, Yuugi’s unique scent, the feeling of his rapidly beating heart inside his chest, breaking with Yuugi’s sobs…

Sometimes his memories were still confusing to him. He didn’t understand. Was he the bad Pharaoh? Was it his father? Had he been punished for something that his Father had done? But he sacrificed himself to save his people. That can’t be a sign of a bad person… right? Or was it perhaps the darkness for thousands of years that turned him twisted? Then there was light, Yuugi, his Hikari. Yuugi, who showed him kindness, forgiveness, friendship. Yuugi, who reminded him that things weren’t inherently evil. Yuugi, Yuugi, who was his entire World for years. Yuugi made him good again. But was he bad to begin with?

He’d been so young when everything happened. He couldn’t remember, even though he had his memories. He had never been a God, just a boy. Just a boy who had no idea about what he was doing. A boy who hadn’t lived. A lonely boy who found a connection with another lonely boy.

No. No, he wasn’t ready to leave, despite his win. He was still lonely. Still confused. But he pulled Yuugi to his feet, wiped away the tears from his partners’ face and it physically hurt to pull away from him to walk towards the doors to the afterlife. It was happening. He didn’t want it to happen. He had been a God, a protector, an insane spirit. He never really felt human. Just a spectator in the mysterious thing called life.

Yuugi had been through so much. Yuugi had depths to him that awed Yami. Emotions, thoughts, desires, goals… Yuugi was crying even though he had won. It baffled Yami as much as he could understand it. He wanted to cry as well. The weight of it was heavy on his chest. His heart felt swollen. It was too heavy, it hurt. 

He was confused, so confused. He spoke his name to the doors but they refused to open. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Atem.”

A sudden pain slashed through his head and Yami cried out, grasping his temples as his weak knees finally gave out. He couldn’t hear anything other than a roaring, a thunderous rumble that vibrated within his very bones. It hurt. It really hurt. He couldn’t even cry out again. He couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t feel anything other than pain. 

What was going on? Why was this happening?

And he gasped, shooting upright and banging heads with somebody who gave a familiar cry. Yuugi. He opened his eyes, and saw the worried faces of his friends. He could feel a wetness of his cheeks, an ache covering his entire body, his heart beating faster and faster and his head hurt. 

“Aibou?” Yami stuttered, his eyes beginning to focus. His partner was clutching at his eye. “Yuugi? Wha... what’s happened?”

But everyone was confused, nobody had answers, and Yami’s head hurt. He looked towards Yuugi, who was looking back at him with confusion. “But… I won. Why are you here?”  
“Pharaoh, think. Was your head and heart clear when you approached the door?” Ishizu asked, her soft voice strung tight. 

“I… No. I don’t think so,” Yami said, feeling the cold hard floor beneath his buttocks and hands. He shivered, wrapped his arms around his knees. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he whispered, though he may have well have shouted by how silent everyone fell. He couldn’t look at them. He couldn’t look at anyone other than the dark, dark door that had refused his admission into the afterlife. 

What did this mean? Why did he hurt so much?

He curled up in a ball, overwhelmed and tired and anxious. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, his head was cycling. The doors were dark. He had been refused. He had been refused. What had he done wrong? Why? How? 

A hand touched him and he flinched, backing up a few inches like a frightened animal. “Try again, Pharaoh. Make your mind and heart light. Do not be confused. You won. You are ready,” Ishizu instructed. But at that Yami’s breathing began to hitch and he felt like that was the wrong thing to do. It was completely and utterly wrong. He had been refused, there was no point in trying again. His heart was not light. It felt so very heavy.

He raised a hand to his chest. It was thumping against his palm, a strange sensation that almost made him feel sick. He… he… was alive. He was alive. 

There was muttering around him that he couldn’t comprehend. 

Alive. His heart told him. Alive.

That he could understand. 

That, and…

Yami looked up just as Yuugi knelt beside him, amethyst eyes concerned. “Do you need to talk?” Yuugi asked softly, but Yami shook his head and intertwined his fingers with Yuugi. He pressed their combined palms against their – no, his – chest. He willed Yuugi to feel what he was. 

Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive.

And in amongst the chaos of confusion, Yuugi was once again the voice of reason, the light in the darkness. “Let’s go back to the boat,” his clear voice rang out. Everybody listened, on automatic, Yuugi leading the way. Behind him, connected by sweaty, shaky palms was Yami, eyes trained onto the familiar form. The only clarity in this confusion.  
Ishizu was spluttering words that made no sense and Yami’s hand was being held. It was all he could focus on. Mumbles and mutters echoed off the walls of the tomb and along with the steady sound of footsteps was the frantic beating of his heart.

Alive. Alive. Alive.

At the boat, the questions began. 

“What happened?”

“Why did the afterlife refuse you?”

“Are you sure your name is Atem?”

“Maybe Yuugi wasn’t the right person to duel you? Let me do it.”

“Is there something we missed?”

“What are we doing to do?”

“Why does Atem have a body? How long will that last?”

His head was spinning. He could feel Yuugi’s body pressed against his side and he tried to focus on that, on his Aibou, but the pain in his chest was getting too much and Atem pressed his free hand there. He was shaking. He couldn’t breathe. The air felt weird in his lung. His blood felt strange in his veins. Nothing felt right.

“Aibou?” He whimpered and Yuugi’s hand tightened around his. “”Don’t let me go?”

“I’m right here,” his wonderful Light said gently yet firmly. “Everything is okay. We’ll get to the boat and it’ll just be you and me. Okay? Just you and me. Then, when you’re calmer, we’ll figure this out together. I’m not going anywhere.”

Tears filled Atem’s eyes and he gasped in shallow pants. Everyone kept looking at him. At the temple. At their hands. At him. They were muttering, confused and… 

His Aibou. His Aibou still had dried tears on his face, eyelashes clumped with salty liquid. He had won. Yet Atem was physically holding his hand, being lead towards the boat that suddenly seemed abnormally large and intimidating. It was hard to believe he had prepared his deck there not even 24 hours ago, a deck that was supposed to determine his fate.

Was this it? What about Aibou? What had happened? Why? What did this mean? And was it bad that there was a part of him that was ecstatic? Even if this physical form ended in seconds from now, he had been able to hold Yuugi. He could die happy now. He could… 

But he didn’t want to. 

Maybe the Gods acknowledged that? Maybe, just maybe, he was being given a chance. The bubble of hope inside his chest hurt. Or was that the irregular beating of his heart? Was Aibou’s beating the same? He was shaking; Atem could feel it. He tried to turn to look at his partner but his vision was going black around the edges and he barely had time to realise what was happening before everything went black.

The last thing he heard as he fell as Yuugi’s panicked cry of “Mou Hitori no Boku?!”

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my writing folder for a few months now. I hope to continue it at some point! Just thought I'd post this here for now.


End file.
